Our runners-up this week are @bergdg, @hiygamer, and @hypexion!
@bergdg — Monument of the Guardian
You’re an absolute mad...person (Damn you, broken pronoun-bot!). Well! I love this card. Who knew that there were more ways to make shrines absolutely bonkers weird? You, clearly. Good that you didn’t specify the basic type, because that would make it harder in the five-color Shrine piles. You can activate it at instant speed, spending a mana for a combat trick, or pre-combat swingies. Totally fair there! Really enjoy the slightly slower payoff-kinda notion, and I imagine that if you have one other shrine, you can enchant your second color next turn and then boom, your previously enchanted Plains can function as basically a free spell.
First small wording order, it should be “gain vigilance.” Second flavor order, I like your flavor text. Good punctuation impact. Second flavor order that’s not the good kind, monuments are really darn tangible, and as an aura, I don’t feel that “Monument” was the one you should’ve gone for here. There are quite a few others, but considering monuments in MTG’s history? It’s a small quibble and easily rectified, though. Overall? Supremely happy with this card from you.
@hiygamer — Siren Seacharter
I feel this card is printable. I’m not sure how I actually feel that impacts my judgment. When you have a card that’s great and understandable, it makes it really hard to weigh against cards in the same vein. In the end, this one’s definitely commendable, and also a beast to deal with in limited. The explore-on-attack clause means a lot of free pseudo-surveils, a lot of damage in the air, and a lot of card advantage when you build the deck right. Once more, it feels less flavor-focused, but the flavor of charting the islands is still there, which is pretty cool.
Is it too much? No, but I can imagine that this card comes down and it’s an answer-or-you-die kind of deal. If you have any extra pirate support, that’s just a bonus. I’m surprised that there were two explore-themed cards this week, actually. It’s a very popular mechanic and I totally get that. Perhaps the workshop gives ideas... Heh. No, yeah, all the same, it’s just plain good, and I would be remiss not to include it. Perhaps it’s not as weird as some of the other cards, but it’s not asking to be.
@hypexion — Light Mage’s Might
I’m honestly a little floored by this card. I had to think long and hard about the kind of deck you’re making with this, and how it would play in different formats. I’m a mono-white player in Pioneer (sometimes), and I considered the four-mana go-wide sorcery, and honestly, it’s not that overpowered, even though it seems it at times. The balance you made here is oddly fantastic. Even having a 3 or 4-creature brigade in limited would be awesome, but not too much, also depending on your deck.
I suppose that this is, uh... Gobakhan? That would make the most sense. “Geostorm” is a pretty crazy mechanic, and I don’t mind it. I wonder how it would be flavored for other land types, and I wonder how you would balance it. Honestly, it seems small in its design space to me, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a powerful mechanic for sure and this is a powerful card. The name’s not exactly blowing me away but whatever, I’m sure that an army of shieldmages will be the ones to do that if the sandstorm doesn’t do it first. Overall: quirky, pretty daring, and an excellent thought puzzle for me.
As I learned, and by that I mean as I sorta figured out without actual consequence, the flavor/mechanics love is hard to balance. Cards like Loam Lion are suave and cool and mysterious to me; you got that mechanical bend but also, like, the lion gets to hide in the woods! That’s really cool! And...there’s also the mechanical ones straight-up, which encourage deckbuilding restrictions, but those are a different kind of fun, and... I think I should’ve asked for more of the former but I’m glad that I got all these good designs regardless.
Like, this week was GOOD. Very few mechanical stumbles. It does kinda suck when you have some cards that are functional but not exciting but still REALLY good, because talking about them is different than evaluating them. Y’know? They can’t be evaluated in the same way because they’re already really awesome, so they end up just being good on their own and that’s about it. Still, the nature of this contest allowed for that open-endedness; what else could I have expected? I’m still quite happy to be talking about the cards I enjoyed and tweaking the things that need tweaking. It’s all fun.
JUDGE PICKS are cards I want to commend for one reason or another, that either had a specific cool aspect or just missed the cutoff.
@0woah — Contracted Excavator
Interesting name and concept you’re working with here. I would definitely caution to make this rare, because, I mean, Ragavan’s a strong little monkey as is (and, like, this isn't even comparable, just so we're clear), and even at this cost the ability to run a mono-red deck with all Mountains and this is incredibly strong. Still, I gotta say: this is a real solid submission. I’m viewing it through a rare lens all the same. The ability to exile-steal your opponents’ best cards or at least prevent them from getting their shenanigans is pretty crazy.
I think I see the flavor, too, but this is one of those utilitarian cards; I’m doing commentary out of order so I think I said something similar below. Regardless! On the flavor front, sure, dwarf mercenaries checks out. Good use of the type with the mechanical synergy. The dwarf mines, and whatever they find is yours. Awesome. In limited, this could be a really strong utility card if not a half-decent attacker, and once you up the rarity we’re pretty good. Notes: It should be “Mountain card” for the activation, and I would word it: “Choose target opponent. Exile the top card of that player’s library and the top card of your library. You may cast those cards this turn, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells.” You don’t need “in hand” for this.
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@batatafilosofal — Flood Away (JUDGE PICK)
In a mono-blue deck, this thing’s a heck of a slog to get through. I’m a huge fan of big swingy bounce-like cards, but wow... All the same, though, this has a unique way of getting around that by having the big things come in first. It’s a shame that your opponents’ permanents will enter the battlefield before yours—unless they’re all small and your stuff is pretty big. Which, well, speaks for itself. What a strange card. I think I want to veer away from flavor-specific critique here because it’s clearly a general-magic utilitarian card, and that’s totally fine. The art could speak for all of that.
The question is then, with the math and whatnot, if this is a little too headachey for standard, or even for limited, and I love this card but I gotta say, a zillion counters and upkeep triggers and a return to suspend in standard? Not sure how I feel about that optimistically. What I will say, however, is that this card’s definitely great in digital. On Arena, you cast this card, and beep boop everything’s out of the picture. I have a vehement disdain for Arena, but I have a soft spot for places where human error would make things worse. Perhaps this card has a home. Also, you can remove that second “each” from the first ability, I believe.
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@bread-into-toast— Peak Performance
I’m curious why this wasn’t an “until end of turn” or “until the end of your next turn” here; Occam’s razor, that was an oversight, but regardless. Quite a strange little thing here. I think the wording that you were going for and the ultimate execution may have, well, needed more words, like those weird milling-recursion cards they’ve been making lately. I think I see what you were going for generally: double-impulse type of common, with an extra land grab. Fine enough! Not egg-in-an-avocado good, but fine enough.
I’ll admit that the flavor text is making me grin. This isn’t a flavor-based contest, so people are probably going for a little more of a natural what-follows kind of vibe, which is totally cool! Silly for the advantage. You know, it’s a shame that this card only gets Mountains. It’s basically unplayable or at least really frustrating in a two-color draft archetype. Perhaps this is suggesting more of a constructed lean or a monocolor format, Pauper-burny, and I feel that. The limited player in me is seeing this as a fifteenth pick almost all of the time. I ain’t about to complain when I get advantage’d out by the 16-mountain burner, y’know?
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@deg99 — Llanowar Purist
Is there precedent for two replacement effects like this? I mean, I grok it, but wow. This card can be absolutely bonkers. In a casual mono-green Elf deck, having each basic Forest put a COUNTER on each Elf you control?? Good lord. I wonder if this card would be better served as a core-set or DMU-type staple, because in a type-matters environment where Elves are one of the draftable archetypes, this is pretty strong. Hm, all the same, you have to build around it kinda hard. But in constructed? I dunno, I feel that you can make a strong Elf deck even stronger to the point of it being almost out of control. But maybe not. I think I’m worrying too much about blowouts from my days of Felidar Retreat. And this is kind of a more limited Felidar Retreat.
I’m overthinking it. Powerful? Yes. A staple? Eh. Good in limited? If you can make it work, I suppose. Elves and the rest of ‘em make for hard archetypes but the environment can change that. By itself, this card’s speaking to a more constructed means, I think, but could work for limited. Nothing wrong with cards like that overall. It’s not immediately evident but it’s not asking to be so. Getting even one other Elf out would make things work pretty well, so I’m going to say that, just like DMU, this would be totally fine. Oh, right, and as a grammar check: A basic foRest is a land. A basic foRRest....you know what, there was a joke here, but I'm electing to omit it. Point is, one R.
Good news! There’s only one card I could immediately see with which this goes two-card infinite. You, my friend, are tempting fate. What on earth! This is a beast of a card to get down for making blockers and tappers and mana dorks even better. What else?... You know what, it doesn’t have to do anything else. Clock of Omens was broken, and this card is less so, which is genuinely awesome. It’s asking for infinite combos, of course, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and there’s no specific archetype around which to build, AND it takes up mana resources, so that’s great.
Maybe this card’s even bad! Hold on. I mean, like, if you’re in limited, and you try to make this card work, and it’s the one you draw when you’re dead on board, it’s gonna feel REALLY bad to draw it. Like, astoundingly bad feeling. I love that. It’s a card that asks a lot of the player to make it work. Simple, powerful, great for looting dorks. I will say that the flavor text is pretty weak here. Waterwheels making kinetic energy isn’t exactly surprising, so the “reveal” you’re going for doesn’t land for me. I dunno, just not feeling the payoff.
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@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Scuttle
You know, I’m not sure why this one didn’t wow me. I think the simplicity is fine, and the card plays harder the more Islands you have, which is fine, even though it’s almost always going to be a strictly better Mana Leak in the late game—but, it is an uncommon after all. Limited is gonna be fine with it, as it can vary depending on the environment and there’s nothing wrong with Force Spikes. Maybe that’s it: the most I can say for it is that “there’s nothing wrong with it.” And we do need cards like that, cards that could even be great in scenarios where now we have Mana Leak-but-better in Pioneer and whatnot.
The flavor is a little off. Sirens dashing hopes and dashing ships is a violent act of enforced luring, and perhaps this is the place where the ships (spells) are destroyed, but the flavor text’s description feels...like there should be another party? I don’t know, I think that it’s probably fine—with a different name. Scuttling is the act of making holes to sink the ship, cutting away, sometimes deliberately to your own vessel. It’s a subtle/non-telegraphed act of espionage by two equal parties, which doesn’t come across here for me. Now, I was thinking about crabs, and the flavor text of a possible reprint where crabs eat their way through the bottom of a boat, making a hole to sink it—and that’s the slightly less violent version than the “dashing” here. Verb choice matters.
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@just--a--penguin — Garden of the Eidolon
How exactly does the dragon come into play here? Perhaps in the art direction, but who knows. Greek mythology is full of possibilities. First things first: I like the flavor format. Also, how does a land get inspired? Could’ve used a little more substance. I assume the eidolons are the ones tending the gardens. Do the gods need to eat? At least on Theros, I thought they were supplemented by the belief of their people. No matter. Tirezius still has fruit, so maybe I’m talking nonsense. At the end of the day, this card is fine, but I wouldn’t pick it highly in any format. Also, how does a land get inspired?
I guess third things third, this card should be uncommon? It’s a pretty great ramp spell and fixer, but that’s been done at common before. The mana not emptying feels like it’s upping the complexity; maybe this could be a three-mana uncommon? Either way, it’s not a bad card, but it’s lacking a little bit for me. Going back to it, I think the flavor text could’ve used a little more oomph.
EDIT: Something strange happened to the copy-pasting of the commentary here, so I have no idea what else to say beyond this. I think in the end I went with a rant about rarity, mana emptying, questioning myself and how mana works, and then I asked Maro something, and then I made popcorn and drove to catsit. Bottom line as well was that this card is nigh unplayable even in limited at this cost and rarity. Needs other substance and focus.
Oh, well that’s weird—but I guess either great minds think alike or great workshops produce cool results. The merfolk Island-love has always been there but I haven’t thought about it much until now! I really like the mechanics of this card. It’s asking a little bit of the board, but it’s an effect that, given the state of the board, I can imagine people trying to make work, and having it work well. Tap a merfolk, then get your High Tide. Wording-wise, I believe “until end of turn” needs to go before all that because most MTG cards like to end on a clean .” at the end of their rules text when applicable.
I don’t think playability would be affected in either limited or constructed. This is a card for Merfolk players to have fun with and to boost their archetypical decks. I like the specificity of it. The flavor text feels good conceptually but reads oddly to me. The second part being its own sentence makes me... Oh, no, nono, dangit, now I REALLY want this to be a rhyming couplet somehow. Look, I’m not going to figure that out, but I’m tasking you with it now. This is your burden to bear. The tl;dr of it is that having that sentence makes it feel stilted after a period and, like the river, it could use smoother flow.
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@nine-effing-hells — Ire of Stones
You might want to double-check and hand-enter your reminder text, because “another Mountain” is cute flavorfully but doesn’t need the ‘nother’ up in there. Still, I feel this card and I feel what you’re going for. This one is weird and I really like that drawback for it. For this contest, I feel that this is exactly the kind of card that I was hoping to see at the concept level: it interacts with the card type in a manner that shows a flavorful caress. Did I ask for that specifically? No, but what’re we gonna do at this point, right?
The title “ire” is a little off, but as for the rest of it... What can I say? This card’s cute. It could be fun to get your Goblin Guides in early and then, when they die, you get some untapped lands. I doubt you can go infinite easily with these things, so that’s all fun and fair. Instead, you have a beater, and that’s all we can ask for. Hm, I wonder how this contest would have gone with monocolor cards that care about different land types... In retrospect, that might have even been better, but you know what, I’ll give it another year, assuming I have the time and energy for this, heh. It’s a beater, it’s sensible, it’s fast, it’s not too powerful, I like it. Fair’s fair.
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@real-aspen-hours — Slip Under
So yeah, let’s assume a rare here, heh. Mechanically, I think that there’s nothing wrong with either part of this card. The wording on the first ability could be “Creatures you control have ward (2)” for ease of access, so let’s assume that. This card is a limited stranger, an odd duck, because it kind of forces these two colors, but if that’s what works, that’s what works. I would have liked more of a flavorful connection between them, because it’s fine as it stands and I appreciate the multicolor bend, but I want that little glue there.
The real glue that’s missing is what the name represents in terms of an aura. Intangible concepts aren’t easy, and perhaps with cards like Find the Path and Annex I have less ground to stand on, but verbs as aura names rub me the wrong way—or at least I feel that it doesn’t fit as well. Maybe the creatures are slipping under? But then, why would one slipping-under action result in the ward, and then another be phasing out? I would rather have a specific flavor name that referred to the protection granted by the act of enchanting this land that made the sacrifice effect more sensible. Oh, yeah, before I forget: card’s still pretty great! Fun to abuse all your little creatures for a boardwipe.
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@reaperfromtheabyss — Seeker of the Thousand Ways
Gah, long names that look awkward, my old nemesis! ... Gah, cool mechanics involved in combat, my other nemesis! Ahem. Anyway, this card’s hella cool. I think that it speaks for itself, and I think that “You may play that card this turn” would be a better way to word it and has appeared before, but that’s a small quibble. Should the exile be a may ability? Eh, no, maybe not. I also really like the idea of scrying both cards to the bottom and then flipping an even more unplayable card off of the top. That would happen to me for sure.
It’s also quite an archetype you’re asking for. Three-color possibilities actually feels...kinda cool? It makes me wonder if they’d reprint the DMU duals—and how many times have I mentioned those now? I don’t even want to count—for those kinds of specific shenanigans. Maybe just a couple, maybe just enemy pairs. Either way, no, yeah, it’s a totally fine card. The name really does leave a bit to be desired, though. Seeker of the Way was certainly a card, and this callback feels almost...funny, or at least an attempt at a joke rather than an uplifting remembrance to me. Still, could just be me.
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@spooky-bard — Tarpit Ceratops
Like a fossilized dinosaur skeleton, this card feels cool but a little too sticky. The explore archetype in limited was a strange one to say the least, and in constructed—well, wasn’t there some crazy-ass lifegain deck going around? Am I the only one who remembers that? I might be going crazy. Anyway, this card groks, but the pieces that want to go together don’t quite have that backing for me yet. Referencing cards revealed through another card’s exploration means that this card is kinda dead a lot of the time, no pun intended, and a four-mana 3/3 menace is super cool but not awesome. The archetype could work well by putting THIS into the graveyard, and that’s all cool.
I dunno, I’m just not sold yet. I do grok it, I promise, and I know that it should adhere. There’s nothing specific that I can point to that makes me hesitate. If anything, I’d say that it’s the ambition of it. There is indeed a fair amount of ambition taking place with the question of what gets revealed, and you know what, I want to commend you for trying something new on that front. Small actual note, the “it” on the Swamp clause there? It reads like it’s referring to the Swamp and that’s pretty confusing. And shouldn’t it be “is” revealed?
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@stupidstupidratcreatures — Kor Ambusher
This is certainly a Kor. You know what, I’m actually a little surprised that there wasn’t a card named this already, and I could have sworn that there was. Ah well, learn something new every day. So! Mechanically, yep, that’s a warrior, it’s suggesting an RW warriors archetype, it’s a cool white card, and it gets to break a little chunk of a the pie without actually breaking anything. That much is all fine.
For contest terms, this card’s pretty insubstantial? The lack of art direction and flavor text mean that the ‘generally good’ mechanics are all we have from it. This card feels like something in the slot of a set skeleton. And you know what, if you’re building a set, there’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s understandable why this card would exist. It just means that there’s not much to say about it beyond the fact that it’s...good. Perhaps the nature of the contest meant that that was more of the mechanical bend, but all the same. Afraid I don’t have much more to say, cap’n.
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@wolkemesser — The Soilsmith
The reasons why Yedora specifies “nontoken” are numerous, but in general, the face-down restriction is the more important one. The Soilsmith retaining name, mana value, and abilities means that going infinite and abusing sac outlets to basically get unkillable lands with static abilities is...rough. It’s rough! I think it’s inadvertent, but you made a magnificently busted card here. In Limited, this is the card you have to build around and win the game with, and in constructed—I’m thinking Commander—you aren’t going to make any friends here. Besides, it counts ITSELF. Which is disgustingly strong.
I know that Obsidian Fireheart is cool, but that reminder text wouldn’t be as useful as just saying that it remains after The Soilsmith isn’t on the battlefield or whatever. “Rotting” implies decay, and this is permanent. There are...quite a few quibbles with this card, and I do still want to say that it’s a cool idea, but wow, no, it’s mechanically broken. Win some, lose some.
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One of these cards, IMO, fits next week’s prompt perfectly. Which one?
Monocolor decks are a fun little thing. I remember looking at the Staff cycle as upgrades to that one lifegain cycle back in the M15 or whatever days, and as a budget player, I'm a huge fan of monocolor decks as ways to make a mana base inexpensive while having a competitively viable time.
Sometimes in limited, you might not want all the types, and having that kind of restriction is going to make for awkward deckbuilding at times with two-colored signposts and all that, but sometimes? Sometimes you have a fun little treat to build around—or perhaps just a bonus for when you rip it in the midrange. Who knows what you'll find?
Design a card whose rules text contains exactly one basic land type.
Not two, not three, not five, but exactly one.
Cards to think about include:
Quarry Colossus
Razor Golem
Vedalken Shackles
Merfolk Wayfinder
Cabal Coffers
Squelching Leeches
Koth of the Hammer
Mine Collapse
Loam Lion
Binding the Old Gods
What kind of cards am I looking for? This week, I'd be curious about mechanical elegance that we haven't seen before in cares-about-basic-types before, and/or a really unique flavor connection between your card and that land type.
You are designing for a draftable premier set.
Happy hunting! I'm curious to see what kind of land-based distribution we'll have.
@abelzumi
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Cycle on over to our >> DISCORD
Congratulations to @helloijustreadyourpost, @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes, and @snugz for winning this week's contest!
@helloijustreadyourpost — Urborg’s Descent
There are a lot of great cards to talk about this week, and this one is just plain elegant. I agonized a little near the end of my selection process, but thinking about the world, about the way that these cards play out, and the limited/constructed applications, I had to conclude that this card is just pretty darn great. Milling and losing life isn’t the greatest four-drop ETB you could ask for, but the eventual downfall being super-Mutilate is just about worth it. This card’s worded spectacularly, which is good to see, and it’s for sure a control-oriented and slower card.
I do really enjoy the flavor progression that’s both straightforward, sensible, and powerful. You have the sinking into the mire, the flooding of black mana and death, and the necromancy that arose from its sinking. Selective exile is great, untapped Zombies is great, and you know what, this card could be fantastically annoying in a mono-black deck or a deck with swamp types, so I’m all for it. DMU duals especially make this one a fun little treat in that meta, heh. So you know what? Well-won. I especially appreciate the attention to wording on a fairly complicated card.
@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Waves’ Rising
This card, man. I feel some sense of modernity that’s hard to explain here, but this is quite a powerful card and I would hate to be on the other side of the table. Looking at it more, I wish it would work just as well as a sorcery, but you and I both know that it doesn’t. This is an instant-speed horror that is a game blowout if anyone can use it. Limited-wise, I don’t think anyone’s going to be forcing it, but you never know. Constructed-wise, whoof, someone will have fun with their duals here. What a card.
Your art direction and flavor text are pretty spot-on, too. These sailors are lost at sea, and perhaps they were lost at sea to the people waiting for them, too, and this card serves as a warning. The camera angle of the art direction implies a really awesome piece too! It’s worldless and that’s totally fine—krakens are everywhere. All in all, the bounce and potential 6/6 is a swell idea, the limits are reasonable, the late-game style is great, and I just really love this card’s vibe! Good power sensibility here.
@snugz — Necromancer’s Apotheosis
I grok this card. Does everyone? Perhaps not, but that’s fine. The limits here are intended to be a little convoluted and I totally feel that. Once you get it, though—for anyone reading this that’s not there, really imagine the game state and the balance you can make from this. It’s a fantastically head-scratching card that asks the most from MTG players that they could possibly put into it. Limited all-star, constructed...maybe, commander self-mill for sure. And weirdos will try to make it happen because it’s fun to do so.
Once you make the deck right, it’s definitely a get-rid-of-this-or-I-win card. A few Swamps and a lotta self-mill means that this baby regulates itself. But things have to die to make sure the triggers still happen, and you have to watch your drops, and this is a tricky tricky card that can really gum up the board if you’re not careful. I would have LOVED to play this card last night at FNM. All that aside, I do want to point out that the name’s a bit of a bugbear. “Necropotheosis” would be fun but somehow worse. Still, who am I to judge double-turn possible-amazing reanimation? I’m gonna get eight swamps, nine creatures in the graveyard, and reanimate Atraxa.
